


Attachment behavior in wolves

by Smallobjects



Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Kayfabe Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 17:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smallobjects/pseuds/Smallobjects
Summary: There's a six-way match that isn't quite a six-way match. Afterwards, some things don't get talked about.





	Attachment behavior in wolves

**Author's Note:**

> Set directly after the six way for the FCP championship at FCP: Stranger Than Fixxion on 6/23/17.
> 
> The whole match is [on youtube here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpwd3gqWfR4&feature=youtu.be)!
> 
> Punctuation wrangling provided by the lovely TeamBaeley.

Once, in a fit of total sleep deprivation, Chris had actually read the Wikipedia on wolf behavior, as though that was gonna have any insight into what goes on in his tag partner’s mind. It was, of course, completely useless. Lykos is not a wolf. A wolf wouldn’t be over in the kitchen rummaging around in Chris’s fridge, complaining about how there’s nothing he can eat. Because no wolf, not even an especially shit wolf, was a fucking vegan. 

“Shut up Lykos,” Chris shouts in his direction, knowing full well that there’s plenty of food for him. Chris will be the first to admit he’s maybe not a great person necessarily, but he’s a fantastic partner. Of course he’s got food for Lykos. 

Probably, though, probably they should probably talk about what happened in the match. They’re not going to, but probably they should.

It had been a six-way. Didn’t feel like much of a six-way.

It was Chris, four other men trying to get the title for themselves, and one who was trying to help him win it. 

“That kid would die for you, you know that, right?” Travis had told him that a while back. He’d been laughing when he said it, but that sentence had wrapped its tentacles around a very inconvenient part of Chris’s brain. He’d hear it in his head sometimes. Usually when Lykos took a particularly ill-advised leap from the top rope. Sometimes out of nowhere, like at night when Lykos is driving and Chris is talking about anything to keep him awake, he looks over and it plays in his head.

 _That kid would die for you, you know that, right?_

He’d seen it in looking into Trav’s face right before he launched Lykos at him. Of course, Trav was pretty dazed from a baking tray to the head; probably wasn’t thinking much at all. So maybe Chris had just imagined it. (Probably a bad time to have been imagining things. He’ll worry about that later.)

It’s stupid. Nobody’s dying for anyone. This isn’t a firefight, it’s professional wrestling. 

After all, Trent and Tyler didn’t want to hit each other either. But… they did both try to go for pins. They were both ready to win. 

There hadn’t been a moment of regret from Lykos, not as far as Chris could see anyway.

Lykos could have at least said “we won.” “We won” would have made sense. There’s something solid and reassuring about “we won.” It had, after all, been a sick fucking tag move that took out Travis. They did it together. Lykos had every right to claim that the win was as much his. But he didn’t. He said, “you won.” “You did it Chris.” “You showed them all.” 

It had been a six-way match. But it hadn’t really been, had it? And if Chris is honest with himself, he had known that walking in. 

It was never a question. They both knew that Lykos wasn’t going to be FCP Champion that night. It would either be Chris or one of the others. Probably still Travis. 

It didn’t matter that Trent and Tyler had probably talked all sorts of strategy. Had a whimsical little team meeting in their secret clubhouse on their imaginary mountain. Idiots. 

They wouldn’t hit each other, but they wouldn’t really help each other, either. That’s a losing strategy when only one of you can win. Maybe Pete could have won. It’s always strange to Chris how close they keep Pete even though they clearly know he can’t be trusted. He doesn’t understand why anyone would do that.

Should Chris have said something before the match? What could he have said? Should he have asked Lykos to fight him? It seems silly and pointless. Would Lykos have done it? Would Chris have wanted him to? Does it even fucking matter?

Lykos comes back from the kitchen loaded down with more food than he could possibly eat by himself. He’s so happy. Some days he’s so quiet that it’s almost scary, other times he’s like this. Bouncing. Yammering. 

He keeps calling Chris “champ”. Fair enough, Chris thinks, glancing over at his title. 

It wasn’t even two years ago they first teamed up. 

_Lykos had his head ducked, not looking at Chris. “I’m gonna need a new name, I guess?”_

_That hadn’t occurred to Chris. It’s not like he was changing his name. He wasn’t changing anything. But Lykos sounded so hopeful._

_Chris pretended to think it over. “Okay, sure. Why not?”_

_“How ‘bout, uh, Mondai? It’s ‘problem’ in Japanese.”_

_It was clear he had already thought it up. That he’d been waiting to tell Chris, to get his approval. Which felt like a lot of pressure, and he was almost tempted to tell Lykos it was stupid. It’s not like either one of them spoke Japanese. But he admired willingness to be a problem. Everyone around here could use a few more problems._

_“Well then, Mondai Lykos,” Chris lightly cuffed him on the back of the head, “you ready to make a lot of people mad and a few people very frightened?”_

And now here they are, the world at their feet. 

Chris must be thinking too much and not talking enough, because Lykos asks him if he’s okay.

He wishes Lykos had his mask on. Which is pretty selfish considering just how sweaty and uncomfortable that would be. It’s just that sometimes it’s easier to look at. 

It’s not anything wrong with his face; he’s got a good face. But sometimes Chris just wants to see the face he knows in the ring. They don’t have to talk in the ring. That’s part of what makes them so good. He knows exactly where Lykos is going to be before he’s there, the two of them working like different limbs of the same giant creature. 

He doesn’t have to worry in the ring about knowing what Lykos is thinking, or about if Lykos knows what he’s thinking. 

If they were in the ring, he could just grab Lykos by the mask to show what he means. He imagines doing that now. Getting a handful of Lykos’s hair and tugging a little, the way he does with the fur on his mask. Feels like it would send kind of a different message. So instead he just says thank you.

“For what?”

You can’t thank a person for doing what Lykos does. It only tells them that you expect it from them. You can never ask a person to do the things Lykos would be willing to do for him. Chris tries to keep the idea of what those things are vague, but he can’t push down the image of Lykos’s all too human teeth ripping into someone’s throat. You can’t ask these things of someone. You can only hope to pay them back. 

Chris hopes Lykos knows that, and he carefully puts his hand in Lykos’s hair. 

It turns out the feeling isn’t much different than what he feels in the ring. 

Chris searches for the right word for it, but the only one he’s finding is “safe.” Like before a match. Knowing that the shitheads across the ring from them and every wanker in the crowd can see that he’s got Lykos. 

Except Chris isn’t balanced up on the turnbuckle with Lykos crouched at his feet. There’s nobody else watching. They’re sitting very close on Chris’s ratty old couch. His hand is full of soft blond curls, not whatever they make the fake fur for masks out of. Nothing should feel safe about this.

He feels safe anyway. 

He tugs the hair and Lykos’s eyes flutter shut. There’s nothing left to do but kiss him. 

But he doesn’t. He waits. He watches Lykos’s tongue dart out over his bottom lip. He watches Lykos slide from assured anticipation to cold doubt to complete frustration. 

Chris is a patient man. 

Lykos’s eyes snap open, then narrow into a glare. 

Chris laughs. “Come on then, Lykos. Like you mean it.”

Lykos growls, and kisses him.

_“As the wolf is a non-domesticated animal this is an example of attachment behavior without domestication” - Attachment Behavior in Wolves, Wikipedia_


End file.
